LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A long-term boom in Class 8 truck sales is under way and likely to last into 2006, said several manufacturers exhibiting here at the nation’s largest truck show, but the extent depends on how well component suppliers adjust to truck and engine makers’ rising production rates.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — To reach the government‘s 2007 diesel emissions standards, engine manufacturers will refine changes they made to meet 2002 rules and will try to do it without a further loss of fuel efficiency, representatives told the Diesel Emissions Summit II here last week.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — High-tech equipment and software vendors who gathered here for the annual meeting of the Technology and Maintenance Council, a unit of American Trucking Associations, unveiled additional investments and new approaches to tracking and security.

Mike Jeffress, the newly elected chairman of the Technology & Maintenance Council, said there is a nationwide shortage of qualified technicians and he wants TMC, a council of American Trucking Associations, to form alliances with state maintenance groups to do something about it.

uilders of heavy-duty trucks and engines said last week they are boosting production to meet rising demand, as sales and orders for 2004 have reached the fastest pace in years.

U.S. retail sales of Class 8 trucks jumped by 33.9% in January from a year earlier, marking the second consecutive month of sharp gains amid what industry officials say is the strongest truck market in years.

Mack Trucks President Paul Vikner said he expected demand for he company’s freight-hauling heavy-duty vehicles to rebound sharply in 2004, and that Mack would sell 4,000 more trucks this year to highway ustomers. br clear=all>

Engine maker Cummins Inc. said it would make 20 to 30 heavy-duty engines available by mid-2005 for fleets and truck makers to field test as it prepares to meet more stringent federal emissions standards coming in 2007.

Truck buyers late in 2003 bought up every available production slot of the Mercedes-Benz 4000 heavy-duty diesel engine, in what amounted to a “pre-buy” of the last major Class 8 engine that did not have to comply with the Oct. 1, 2002, tougher federal emissions rules.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics, citing preliminary findings from its 2002 Commodity Flow Survey, said trucking’s share of the total value of all goods moved in 2002 jumped 24.5% to $6.2 trillion from $4.9 trillion in 1997, the period covered in the previous survey.